AFTER three decades the arts venue and cinema dies. There's a huge farewell extravaganza on Saturday afternoon and evening (The Storming – no tickets left whatsoever) which will spill out into the roads around and about.
The effing word ‘Institution’ is so over-used it can be meaningless. Not this time. Not with the Cornerhouse.
The astonishing number of celebratory /memorialising Facebook posts, Instagrams, blogposts, tweets, comments and conversations over the last week or so are matched by their own Scribbler site, where people e-mailed in their memories and the various printed postcards have been pegged up in the windows and throughout the building.
Flickr (here) - is a must visit.
I remember going there on my first visit to Manchester in the 80s and thinking, hey - Continental films and Continental beer: how cool!
Its galleries, bookshop, events, lectures, films and madness have been a presence in my life and the life of the city since it opened. Personally, I probably won't miss the idiosyncratic spaces of the cinemas and galleries that much: Cinema 3 had the most un-ergonomic seating layout of any cinema in the UK, and the galleries had little natural light and were an un-airconditioned oven in summer.
Oh but the bar, the bar is going to be missed. It is situated on one of the best crossroads anywhere, it is perfect for 'gown and town', it sits next to bus stops for most of Greater Manchester, the tram is up the road, Oxford Road station next door.
Its two floors with its moveable furniture meant that it accommodated two people or twenty; the food was reasonable; the array of drinks pricey but interesting. The windows out onto the road were magnificent, the clientele completely mixed in age and interests... although the night the Man City fans visited after their 5-1 derby win provided a somewhat different demographic.
HOMEThe Scribbler site also reveals just how many dates and first dates appear to have taken place there – because it was central and open and civilised and welcoming and didn't play music.
It is great news that MMU have leased the building for a couple of years, but make no mistake, we all worry the council have already determined that this building along with the rest of the block (through Grand Central and down to the Salisbury pub) will be wiped away in the near future.
The Facebook group Save Cornerhouse already has well over 5,000 followers (and explains that it should now be called Save Oxford Road Corner). They will be demonstrating on Saturday afternoon.
I am looking forward to Home, but it is a destination place, a little hidden: it is not the bar on the corner. Cornerhouse gave us the first place that looked ‘modern’ and fitted.
This place has been a part of so many people’s lives that while we know times change and places close the indelible mark the Cornerhouse has left makes this closure so much more potent. The effing word ‘Institution’ is so over-used it can be meaningless. Not this time. Not with the Cornerhouse.
(photo credit: Ben Page)
